By luck, they hadn’t got around to lowering the gate again.
* * *
A couple of hours later, heading north on the East Coast road, she passed the Countess, her car’s chassis torn as if it had been raked by huge claws. Dutch, while speeding past in the opposite direction, had a brief glimpse of König gaping open-mouthed. Not long after, she found her way back inland, the d-meter a steady safe blue the whole way.
Sometime in the early evening she at last saw the flickering lights of the Rift. She drove down into the valley, and watched as the shimmering light shifted and changed, once again becoming a long stretch of highway beneath a calm and moonlit night. Like it had been waiting for her.
Maybe it had, she thought. One way or the other, she’d find out. She kept driving towards where she’d seen the ruins of the facility, but by the time she got there it had vanished. So had Teijouan: the Coupé sat on a desert road, a tall sandstone butte visible in the distance. Somewhere beyond the horizon the lights of a city radiated a faint glow.
There’d be others following behind her. Of that, Dutch felt sure. Maybe some few of them might find their way to this very same road, the one out of all those millions the Rift had brought her to. She checked the fuel gauge: she still had a little gas. Not much, but she had faith that somewhere up ahead she’d find an open garage with tools and gas and maybe even a beer.
She wound down the window and drove towards the dawn, letting the breeze catch her hair.
About the Author
Gary Gibson is one of the UK’s leading authors of hard science fiction with a career stretching over sixteen years and thirteen books, including STEALING LIGHT, FINAL DAYS and EXTINCTION GAME. His work has been translated and published around the world, including Russia, Brazil, Germany, and France.
For updates and notifications of new releases, visit his website at www.garygibson.net or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
To get a free novelette, OUR LADY OF HOLY DEATH, available only to mailing list subscribers and set in the world of Devil’s Road, click here: https://eepurl.com/b1ma4L.
Standalone books:
ANGEL STATIONS (2004)
AGAINST GRAVITY (2005)
GHOST FREQUENCIES (2018)
DEVILS ROAD (2020)
Shoal Sequence:
STEALING LIGHT (2007)
NOVA WAR (2009)
EMPIRE OF LIGHT (2010)
MARAUDER (2013)
Final Days Duology:
FINAL DAYS (2011)
THE THOUSAND EMPERORS (2012)
Apocalypse Trilogy:
EXTINCTION GAME (2014)
SURVIVAL GAME (2016)
DOOMSDAY GAME (2019)
Story Collections:
Scienceville & Other Lost Worlds (2018)
Table of Contents
Jail Break
Death Notice
Signature Move
Island of Death
Guns, Cars and Kaiju
Sidekick Du Jour
To The Rift
Endless Highway
About the Author
